Letters To the Editor

Attendance the Key Factor In Passing Proficiency Tests

To the Editor:

In a recent letter, Monty Neill, associate director of FairTest,
reported inaccurate data for the Cleveland public schools in support of
his conclusion "that the rising pass rate [for Ohio's exit test] may
stem from a striking increase in the number of African-Americans wZg_op
out of high school--or are pushed out by the test" (related story
).

The class of 1994 was the first required to pass the Ohio 9th-grade
proficiency tests to graduate. Clearly, in Cleveland, this requirement
did not create a marked difference in the percentage of 8th graders
graduating four years later. In fact, no data reported to the state
suggest either that the number of dropouts in Cleveland increased
significantly because of the tests or that African-American students
were disproportionately represented in Cleveland's 1994 graduating
class.

When comparing 9th-grade fall enrollments to the number of graduates
four years later, the percentage of students graduating in Cleveland
was 33 percent in 1992, 35 percent in 1993, and 33 percent (yet to be
confirmed) in 1994.

For some reason, Mr. Neill used 8th-grade enrollments instead.
Still, using the state's data and Mr. Neill's method, the results for
Cleveland show the following percentages when comparing 8th-grade
enrollment to the graduating class four years later: 44 percent in
1992, 46 percent in 1993, and between 40 percent and 41 percent in 1994
(final data yet to be confirmed). These figures, as verified by
Cleveland, are markedly different from those presented by Mr. Neill: 52
percent in 1992, 53 percent in 1993, with a drop to 36 percent in
1994.

This clarification does not defend the percentage of Cleveland's
students who graduate after four years of high school. In fact, that
percentage must be improved dramatically.

During recent legal challenges to the proficiency tests, we have
shown that the state's 9th-grade tests are fair, bias free, and a
more-than-reasonable expectation to hold of Ohio's graduates. The state
has successfully defended its case to the U.S. Education Department's
office for civil rights and to a federal district court.

The proficiency tests are a valid measure of what is taught in Ohio
classrooms. Research showed us that the most significant factor in
success or failure on the proficiency tests is not race, as some have
claimed, or per-pupil spending, or average family income; it's
attendance. More specifically, the research revealed that the typical
student who had passed all required proficiency tests by the end of
grade 11 had attended school that year more than 20 days more than the
student who hadn't passed the tests.

Bottom line: If you're not in class, you're not learning what it
takes to pass the proficiency tests.

This conclusion means that, while every school must strive to
provide equal opportunities for students to learn, each school must
also work with all members of the community--especially parents--to
fulfill a decades-long obligation to keep students in school and
learning.

Ted Sanders
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Columbus, Ohio

New Teaching Methods Require 'Serious Testing'

To the Editor:

As an elementary school teacher for over 30 years, I was struck by
Kenneth G. Wilson's observation in "Growing Pains" (related story
) that schools, unlike industry, have no
process of strategic change. I agree. During my years of teaching
reading I have seen "the sight method," "phonics," "language
experience," "open classroom," "Distar," and "whole language" succeed
each other in popularity with administrators. Each method came into the
classroom highly touted--and then proved no more effective than the one
it replaced.

This is hardly surprising since the one thing absent from each new
method is serious, controlled, objective testing under a variety of
normal classroom conditions. Instead, these new programs arrive in
schools straight from the research "drawing board." Publishers appear
to accept new ideas with no more proof of their value than the say-so
of the latest expert--who has become an expert by publishing a book,
not by trying out his method as a teacher in an average school.

Teachers know that there is no method of teaching reading which has
actually been proved to work better than the one they are already
using--in spite of all the hype by experts, theorists, authors, and
publishers which accompanies each new exhorttion to "reform." Until
they see actual classroom documentation of the sort Kenneth Wilson is
talking about, why should teachers disrupt their classrooms every few
years, when past experience tells them it will not improve their
students' reading ability? Let's develop a rational system of testing
new programs before we ship them out to schools. This will save money
for the taxpayer and perhaps succeed in finding a method of teaching
reading which works better than the ones we already have.

Helen Bardeen Andrejevic
New York, N.Y.

Prestige Based on Research, Not University Connection

To the Editor:

Harry Judge concluded that "Teacher education in the States may be
uncomfortable in universities, but it is very much there" (related
story).
He also muses that this university connection may confer the same
prestige on education that it conferred on medicine. To date, this
prestige has been denied, and rightly so.

The reason is that a physician bases his practice on knowledge which
is continually advanced by controlled research. Even believers in
alternative treatment will choose an allopathic physician in a crisis
or emergency because they realize that certain medical procedures base
their efficacy on solid scientific knowledge and can be counted on to
work.

By contrast, for the teaching of reading, the majority of teachers
ignore years of solid research about the most effective way to teach
this crucial skill. Both the National Council of Teachers of English
and the International Reading Association have endorsed the
whole-language approach, despite research showing the shortcomings of
their own procedures and the efficacy of teaching phonics to beginning
readers. Its main proponents state that researchers operate in an
artificial environment and that teachers know what's really going on
when a student reads. Unfortunately, the proponents of whole language
have been unable to demonstrate the veracity of any of their
theories.

As the scientific evidence mounts in favor of phonics, the
proponents of whole language, still eschewing the value of doing any
controlled research on the effectiveness of various reading approaches,
have become more strident in the counterattack. What could be the
reason for such desperate argument?

Many schools of education have trained their students in the
whole-language methods, ignoring the skills to teach decoding directly.
Graduates from these universities lack the background to teach phonics.
The trend away from phonics and accompanying skills was easy because
many professors in schools of education are likewise unskilled in these
disciplines. Acquiring knowledge about how print corresponds to speech
requires rigorous study, and does not automatically follow just because
a person is literate in a language. We now have a large group of
teachers and university professors faced with the option of defending
whole language or undergoing rigorous training to learn another
approach. To date, defense has been the tactic of choice.

Teachers who wish to obtain courses in the knowledge of language
must often take these courses in addition to their other certification
requirements. Those who have made the effort unanimously agree that
direct teaching of the code is more effective.

I refer interested educators to "The Missing Foundation in Teacher
Education: Knowledge of the Structure of Spoken and Written English,"
Louisa Cook Moats, Ed.D., Annals of Dyslexia, Vol. 44, 1994, for
a full examination of this issue. No wonder education is uncomfortable
in the universities.

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